army, the Judges, Privy Council, and Parliament, which are like shortly to be there? Pray write me a word in earnest concerning the matter. How can we talk of being facetious, till we have burnt a candle upon these funest and lugubrious points?'[1] 'If the Irish,' he proceeded, 'be now to the British as 8 to 1, and if they should be all armed as an army and militia, and the English disarm'd, and if the Irish should be the predominant party in all Corporations, may not the Kingdome be delivered up to the French? And that it would be, depends upon the motives on each side to do the same; which I leave to the consideration of our superiors, whom God direct.'[2]
Apparently with the royal sanction, he drew up some propositions on the civil administration of Ireland for submission to the Lord Deputy, for as such Tyrconnel was already regarded.[3] They covered the points with which the reader is already familiar: the satisfaction of the leading Irish Roman Catholics by large grants from the Crown estates in England; the interchange of population by the encouragement of emigration from England to Ireland and from Ireland to England; the protection of the Roman Catholic minority in England and the Protestant minority in Ireland; complete liberty of conscience in both countries; and a statutory Union with an alteration of the representation and of the basis of taxation; and many other reforms in Church and State directly affecting both the prosperity of the people and that of the Royal Exchequer, which Sir William was never weary of insisting could be shown to be identical interests. He believed it would be possible by these means to turn the Irish into loyal subjects in nine years. Renewing apparently the set of proposals which he had made in the latter years of Charles, he undertook to carry out several of his own plans, if
- ↑ May 12, 1686.
- ↑ September 19, 1686.
- ↑ A great number of papers, mostly in a very fragmentary condition, exist on these topics amongst the Petty MSS. The most important are: 'The Scope and Designe of the Papers delivered to the Earl of Tyrconnel, 12th May, 1686, in Order to an Accommodation;' 'Papers concerning Sir William Petty's Project of getting Himself Appointed Surveyor General and Accomptant General of all his Majesty's Dominions.'
